Chief Roi Mata's Domain: Challenges for a World Heritage Property In

56174_Extreme_heritage_Part 2_Historical Environment 14/09/11 8:38 AM Page 5 Chief Roi Mata’s Domain: Challenges For A World Heritage Property In Vanuatu Meredith Wilson, Chris Ballard and Douglas Kalotiti Abstract by the mass burial of more than 50 of his family and court Chief Roi Mata’s Domain (CRMD) is the first World Heritage associates on a small near-shore island, Artok (or Eretoka), property for the Republic of Vanuatu, and the first cultural which was then placed under customary prohibition or tapu for property listed for an independent Pacific Island state, along the following four centuries. Roi Mata’s former seat at the with the Kuk Early Agricultural Site in Papua New Guinea. This mainland site of Mangaas (or Mangaasi) was also placed under paper introduces some of the key features of CRMD as a tapu shortly after 1600 AD, and the two locations have become cultural landscape, outlining the ways in which its significance refuges for endemic species of fauna and flora. Together with is manifested and distributed across physical and social space. the location of his death, in the spectacular chamber cave of As a littoral landscape, CRMD is exposed to numerous Fels (or Feles), on Lelepa Island, these sites constitute the environmental challenges, including earthquake, tsunami, central nodes in a landscape that commemorates Roi Mata volcanic eruption, cyclone, invasive species and sea-level rise. and embodies his social revolution – a landscape More immediately threatening, however, are the social and encompassed within the boundaries of Roi Mata’s chiefly economic challenges posed by the limited income-earning domain. opportunities for the local communities and custodians of The nomination process began with field surveys and meetings CRMD and the constant pressure from real-estate investors in of landowners and other stakeholders, conducted from 2004 Vanuatu for longterm land leases. The high degree of local-level to 2006 and assisted by a UNESCO Preparatory Assistance autonomy enjoyed by Vanuatu’s communities and the limited Grant for 2005-06. The full nomination file for Chief Roi Mata’s capacity and reach of the state place the local landowning Domain was submitted to the World Heritage Centre in community at CRMD in a position of critical importance in February 2007, with minor clarification of the boundaries added ensuring the longterm sustainability of the property. Some of early in 2008. Until his untimely death in April 2011, Douglas the strategies adopted thus far to address these challenges are Markfonulolowia Kalotiti played a central role in this process, as outlined in the paper’s conclusion. a landowner of the nominated property, as Chair of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre’s Fieldworkers Association, which is charged Introduction with the survey and management of local cultural heritage throughout Vanuatu, and as Chair of the newly formed World In July 2008, the cultural landscape of Chief Roi Mata’s Heritage and Tourism Committee (WHTC) of the Lelepa and Domain, as the Republic of Vanuatu’s first submitted Mangaliliu communities. Meredith Wilson and Chris Ballard nomination of a site, was inscribed on the World Heritage List were invited by the Director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, (Vanuatu Cultural Centre 2007). Together with the Kuk Early Ralph Regenvanu, to lead the management and research of Agricultural Site in Papua New Guinea, also inscribed in 2008, the nomination process, and have worked on the project since this is the first cultural site from an independent Pacific Island 2004. state to be placed on the World Heritage List. Vanuatu ratified the World Heritage Convention as recently as 2002 and moved swiftly to produce a Tentative List of sites in 2004. The selection The Constitution of Chief Roi Mata’s of Chief Roi Mata’s Domain (CRMD hereafter) as the first of Domain Vanuatu’s sites for nomination reflected several factors: national CRMD is located in the northwest of the island of Efate, in and international recognition of the significance of the site; a central Vanuatu (Figure 1). The property is essentially a littoral relatively long history of research associated with the site; ease landscape, composed of a portion of the mainland Efate coast of access (CRMD is located just half an hour by car from the together with the two near-shore islands of Artok and Lelepa. national capital of Port Vila); and enthusiasm on the part of the A semi-humid climate prevails over most of Efate, with a local community. This paper introduces some of the key warmer, wetter season from November to April and a cooler, features of CRMD, outlining the ways in which its significance drier season from May to October (Quantin 1992). The geology is manifested and distributed across the physical and social of northwest Efate is dominated by recent limestones and landscapes, and then considers some of the environmental raised coral reefs (Ash, Carney and MacFarlane 1978). A and social challenges to long-term management of the distinctive layer of volcanic tuff present on both Lelepa and property. Artok provides the geological context for the development of the large chamber cave of Fels. Rich soils along the narrow Nominating Chief Roi Mata’s Domain coastal plain of mainland Efate, combined with an exceptionally diverse marine environment, have provided the subsistence Chief Roi Mata’s Domain has been designated a continuing basis for a long history of relatively dense settlement. cultural landscape fulfilling UNESCO criteria (iii), (v) and (vi) for inscription on the World Heritage List, and reflecting the Vanuatu lies within the relatively depauperate faunal region of ongoing significance attributed to this particular landscape by Remote Oceania (Green 1991), and the largest surviving living indigenous or ni-Vanuatu communities (UNESCO 2007). terrestrial species native to Vanuatu are bats, birds and reptiles. The last holder of the paramount chiefly title of Roi Mata is The more significant introduced species include pigs, dogs, widely credited with a series of social innovations that laid the rats and additional reptiles. Most of the natural vegetation of foundations for peaceful interaction between different Chief Roi Mata’s Domain and its buffer zone is disturbed. settlements on Efate. His death in about 1600 AD was marked Formerly, the landscape probably consisted of coastal strand 5 historic environment volume 23 number 2 56174_Extreme_heritage_Part 2_Historical Environment 14/09/11 8:38 AM Page 6 Figure 1 Location of Chief Roi Mata’s Domain in Vanuatu (ANU Cartographic Services) vegetation flanked by littoral forest, grading inland to dry rainforest. However much of the earlier flora has now been replaced entirely by either cultivation or stands of invasive Figure 2 The World Heritage property of Chief Roi Mata’s Domain species. Some indigenous elements exist, particularly around (ANU Cartographic Services) the prohibited tapu sites, the significance of which has ensured their persistence or regrowth (Bickford 2005). to accompany the chief into the afterworld. Artok Island was The World Heritage Area is a triangle formed by the three then declared fenua tapu, or forbidden land, and abandoned principal sites of Roi Mata’s life at Mangaas, his death at Fels for the next four centuries. Other than occasional visits to Artok Cave on Lelepa Island, and his burial on Artok Island (Figure 2). by fishing parties, and ceremonies of respect conducted before The surrounding buffer zone corresponds broadly to the the large headstones that marked Roi Mata’s grave, no further boundaries of the chiefly domain associated with the Roi Mata use was made of the island. title (with some modifications, discussed below). These oral traditions of Roi Mata, recounted widely throughout Chief Roi Mata might be said to exist in three different registers central Vanuatu, and documented by anthropologist Jean or genres: those of the legendary Roi Mata, the archaeological Guiart (1973) in the 1950s, guided Guiart’s archaeologist or historical Roi Mata, and the living Roi Mata. Roi Mata colleague José Garanger in the 1960s to the sites of Mangaas appears to have been one of the more senior titles associated and Artok, and to the archaeological Roi Mata. Garanger’s with the arrival on Efate of new chiefs and a system of ‘court’ remarkable excavation at Artok substantially confirmed the oral positions between about 800-1000 AD. The legendary Roi traditions (Garanger 1972), revealing more than 50 bodies Mata thus probably represents the conflation of several placed around a central figure in a slightly deeper pit, centuries of deeds associated with successive holders of the immediately beneath the headstone identified as that of Roi Roi Mata title. Chiefly titles still held today in Central Vanuatu Mata (Figure 3). The excavation failed to determine the outer extend back in oral traditions for as many fifty generations, boundaries of the mass grave, suggesting that there are further producing genealogies that exceed the better-known skeletons associated with this grave. Polynesian chiefly and royal genealogies in terms of depth, Garanger also excavated the other sites associated with Roi complexity and the richness of their recall (Luders 1996). Mata, at Mangaas and Fels Cave. Roi Mata’s seat at the The last holder of the Roi Mata title is the one most closely mainland site of Mangaas (or Mangaasi) – the type site for the linked with legends of the invention of the matrilineal naflak regional post-Lapita Mangaasi or Incised and Applied Relief clans and the natamwate peace feasts, which introduced pottery ware – demonstrated a long sequence of use of the peace to Efate after a long era of war. Following his death in site, culminating in abandonment after a phase which Garanger Fels Cave, to which he was carried after falling ill at a feast on linked with the last Roi Mata. Surface evidence for this last Lelepa Island, the last Roi Mata was carried throughout his phase is still visible in the form of enclosures of coral walls, domain and finally taken to Artok Island.

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